Key facts
- Lemma admitted sharing dozens of classified documents and photographs with senior Ethiopian officials over more than two years.
- Prosecutors said Lemma hoped the information would help Ethiopia's military identify and kill paramilitary fighters.
- The FBI said Ethiopian officials subsequently used intelligence supplied by Lemma in military operations.
- Lemma used his position as an IT administrator to extract electronic intelligence files, prosecutors said.
- US Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro said Lemma betrayed his oath, colleagues and country.
- Lemma faces up to 22 years in prison under a plea agreement.
An Ethiopian-born American citizen who worked as a US government contractor pleaded guilty to passing highly classified intelligence to Ethiopia, including material he hoped would help target and kill fighters during the country's civil war, the US Department of Justice said on November 4, 2026.
Abraham Teklu Lemma, 54, admitted sharing dozens of classified documents and photographs with senior Ethiopian officials over more than two years, the department said. He faces up to 22 years in prison under a plea agreement, with sentencing scheduled for April 14, 2027.
Lemma had worked as a contractor at the State Department, the Justice Department and the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency responsible for US intelligence satellites. Prosecutors said he worked with senior figures in Ethiopia's political, military and intelligence establishments between 2021 and his arrest in Maryland in August 2023.
According to prosecutors, Lemma secretly removed classified material from secure government facilities, sometimes copying sensitive information into handwritten notes he carried out of the buildings, and used his position as an IT administrator to extract electronic intelligence files. The material included satellite imagery and details of military activities, which he passed to Ethiopian officials through encrypted messages.
The FBI said Ethiopian officials subsequently used intelligence supplied by Lemma in military operations. Prosecutors said he hoped the information would help Ethiopia's military identify and kill paramilitary fighters. In one message to an Ethiopian official in December 2021, he wrote: "We have to finish these people once and for all, otherwise there will never be peace in Ethiopia," court papers showed.
"In doing so, he betrayed his oath, his colleagues, and his country, while jeopardizing our national security," US Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro said. John Eisenberg, the US assistant attorney general for national security, said Lemma "betrayed the United States to an extraordinary degree."
The case concerns a two-year conflict that began in November 2020 and pitted Ethiopian federal forces and their allies against fighters from the northern Tigray region. A peace agreement signed in November 2022 ended the main fighting.